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Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Ay Almodovar !

There are two Spanish men I'd love to meet and they're both movie directors. The first one is José Luis Garci (Ninette, You’re the one) to whom I nearly wrote a letter once just to tell him how much I adore his work and the second one is the cherished enfant terrible of Spanish cinema, Pedro Almodovar.

I started seeing his movies when I lived in Paris and fell in love with his world of characters bitten by passion and desire, the colourful scene of transvestites, the outburst of freedom and exuberance of the Spanish movida during the 80's.

Last night Monchéri and I watched La mala educacion (Bad education). Set in the 60's and the 80's, the story tells about the burgeoning love between two boys in a religious school being witnessed and repressed by the priest director. Eventually, the three characters will meet again when the boys are grownups. The movie, says Almodovar, is like a series of Russian dolls fitting into each other, multiple stories which in the end become one.

Before I moved to southern Spain, Almodovar’s characters seemed exaggerated and a bit caricatured to me but now and then some aspects of Spanish life and society remind me of scenes in his movies. Many times, I would giggle and tell myself : "gosh...incredible..it sounds just like an Almodovar's scene!".